This invention relates to telephone switching systems served by a Voice Messaging System which enables a calling party to leave a message for a subscriber and, in particular, to a subscriber call screening system that allows a subscriber to monitor the message being recorded by the calling party and ensures calling party privacy during voice mail announcements.
There is a need in the field of telephone switching systems to provide the subscriber with increased functionality beyond the simple recording of messages from a calling party. In particular, the traditional answering machine system served as the mechanism to enable a calling party to alert the subscriber that a call was attempted, in the form of a brief audio message from the calling party regarding the reason for the call and the identity of the calling party. The subscriber can then later activate the answering machine system to retrieve these recorded messages. Customer premises-based answering machines typically also provide a rudimentary call screening capability. In particular, the answering machine outputs the entirety of the message recording transaction via a loudspeaker during the message recording process. This enables the subscriber to listen to the message as it is being recorded, and optionally pick up the telephone to barge in on the call connection and speak to the calling party.
In contrast, voice messaging services that are provided by centralized switching apparatus, such as central office switching systems and customer-premises switching systems, do not enable a subscriber to listen to and/or screen an incoming voice message as the calling party is presently recording the message. These central office switching systems redirect the incoming call connection to the voice messaging system as soon as the central office switching system call processing indicates that the voice message function is required. Thus, the traditional central office switching system based voice messaging systems simply enable a calling party to leave a message which the subscriber can later retrieve. The ability to screen calls forwarded to a voice messaging system has been requested by the telephone operating companies to increase the market penetration of revenue enhancing voice mail systems. Such a central office switching system based voice messaging call screening service has been generically proposed in GR-1512-Core, for Call Screening.
The problem that needs to be addressed is a privacy issue with regard to the call screening capability for calls forwarded to voice messaging systems. The calling party has an expectation of privacy during the time the voice messaging system provides the prerecorded instructions/message to the calling party and is thus likely to speak freely, not expecting their comments to be overheard or recorded during this process. If the subscriber can monitor the voice messaging connection, during this time interval, the calling party""s comments are conveyed to the subscriber without the calling party being aware of this condition. Thus, in the field of central office switching systems, there is no capability to provide the calling party with privacy, as the voice messaging system provides the prerecorded instructions to the calling party.
The above-described problem is solved and a technical advance achieved by the calling party privacy feature of a subscriber call screening system for a central office switching system, which enables a subscriber to monitor and intercept the last forwarded, active call to the Voice Messaging System, while providing the calling party with privacy as the voice messaging system provides the prerecorded instructions/message to the calling party. The calling party privacy feature delays call screening alerting to the subscriber to prevent the subscriber from monitoring the call connection until the calling party is recording their message on the voice messaging system. Depending on the method used, once the calling party privacy feature requirements are satisfied, the subscriber call screening system notifies the subscriber of the presence of a calling party who is recording a message for the subscriber on the Voice Messaging System.